Crime Lab: Cultist's Expert Should Be Barred

Rod Ferrell's Defense Wants To Watch Evidence Testing In The Slayings Of A Eustis Couple.

September 6, 1997|By Frank Stanfield

TAVARES — Vampire cult leader Rod Ferrell has no right to have an expert watch state crime lab workers sift for clues, a lawyer for the crime lab argued in a memo to the judge who will preside over Ferrell's murder trial in February.

''I don't mean to sound impudent, but just because the defendant wants something does not mean he should get it,'' wrote Steve Brady, an attorney for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab in Orlando.

''I'm sure he would like his confession thrown out and all evidence suppressed. But that will not happen unless he can show they were obtained in violation of his constitutional rights. To be blunt, no defendant should receive any benefits to which he or she is not entitled under the law,'' Brady wrote.

The defense attorney for Ferrell and three other Kentucky teens charged in the Nov. 25, 1996, slayings of Richard and Ruth Wendorf want an independent forensics expert to observe tests that could link the suspects to the bloody crime scene.

The lab analyzes deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, to find a genetic pattern that is unique to every individual.

Brady, in his memo filed Friday, also argued: ''Allowing an outside expert access to our laboratory invites the possibility of contamination and even intentional destruction of evidence.''

It also sets a precedent for other cases and would lead to delays, Brady said.

Ferrell's attorney, Candace Hawthorne, said she thinks it is necessary.

''This man's life is at stake,'' she argued, pointing out that the state is seeking the death penalty.

Defense attorneys want private labs to also run tests, but some samples are so small they may be completely consumed by testing in the state lab.

Meanwhile, other information is beginning to surface in the case, including blood spatter analysis by the Lake County Sheriff's Office.

The spatter tests show that the killer stood over the victims and relentlessly rained blows on the Wendorfs' heads.

Richard Wendorf was pummeled while he was lying flat on his back on a couch in the family room, ''with little or no movement on his part,'' according to a report written by Lake County sheriff's crime scene technician Farley ''Jake'' Caudill. Richard Wendorf was struck at least seven times, the report said.

His wife tried to flee her attacker. She was struck at least 12 times in the back of the head, the report noted, four times while running from the west end of the kitchen to the east, four times while falling to the floor in the doorway to the dining room, and four times when she was lying on the floor, her elbow bent, her hand almost touching her face.

Caudill wrote, ''. . . the assailant straddled the victim while delivering the final blows,'' noting that some blood would have splattered onto the attacker.

According to an investigator's report, one of the cult members, Charity Lynn Keesee, 16, reported seeing blood on Ferrell after the attack.

''She observed what appeared to be blood on his face and shirt,'' Lake County sheriff's investigator Al Gussler wrote in his report.

Keesee and Dana L. Cooper, who have been charged as principals in the attack, and the Wendorfs' youngest daughter, Heather, were away from the house at the time of the slayings, according to investigators. Heather, 15, was arrested with the other teens, but a grand jury freed her.

Investigators think Howard Scott Anderson, 17, was inside the house with Ferrell. Anderson also is being charged as a principal. But detectives think Ferrell is the one who struck the Wendorfs with a crowbar.

One key piece of evidence from the scene was bloody shoe prints near Ruth Wendorf's body. Crime technicians cut the tile out of the floor to preserve the ''zigzag print'' of the shoes.

State Attorney Brad King's office also has released pretrial documents showing forged credit card slips from the teens' trip from Eustis to Baton Rouge, La., where they were arrested three days after the slayings.

One receipt, bearing Richard Wendorf's signature, was forged at a Wal-Mart in Tallahassee. Cooper told authorities that she was the one who forged his name. Cooper worked at a Wal-Mart in Murray, Ky., before coming to Florida with Ferrell, Keesee and Anderson, in Anderson's car.

Judge Jerry Lockett will rule on the defense attorneys' request for a lab expert sometime in the near future.

FDLE said it will provide lab notes, data and other information to defense experts. Brady said that all an observer can do is watch to make sure no mistake is made.

''But any mistakes made during the testing process will result only in rendering the evidence inconclusive. It cannot increase the probability of linking the blood evidence to a particular person,'' he wrote.